


Revenge Is Always the Answer

by Katlyn1948



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Other, Outlaws, Revenge, This Got dark real fast, Wild West, also like got really dark, but here I go, but like probably three parts, gendry week, have a shit more tags to add later, i am having fun with it, it lightens up i swear, maybe? - Freeform, mention of rape, multiple parts, sort of took a different apporach, wasn't planning on making a wip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katlyn1948/pseuds/Katlyn1948
Summary: Arya is an outlaw trying to take down a power house bank and Gendry is a farmer along for the ride.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark/Aegon VI Targaryen (Mentioned/Past), Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Shireen Baratheon & Gendry Waters
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welllll this is going to be at least three parts because yeah...my brain. Also, it's interesting. I am having so much fun writing it. I am liking the twist I am taking it, as well as the writing style I have chosen to use, which may change come the second part. Also, this got dark and it wasn't my intention to get dark, but it just did. This is also my submission for day five of Gendry week "Outlaws" 
> 
> I hope you all like it!

_Revenge is never the answer_

Those were the words her mother used to whisper to her whenever she had a spat with one of her siblings. Their silly games and pranks that they would taunt her with needed some reprimand, yet before she had a chance to act on her antics, her mother would always give her that knowing glance and she pout up the stairs to her shared room knowing revenge would never be taken.

But that was then, and her mother was long dead. Revenge is always the answer.

“The Grey Wolf” was her moniker; stalking her prey in the dead of night and striking for the perfect kill. She was swift and silent, and if she was lucky, could swipe a few coins in the process.

But her kills were more than just a way to earn a few pieces of gold; no, her kills were always for revenge. Each man and woman she would strike down had their death coming.

Now, she wasn’t always like this: an outlaw hunting down the people who did her wrong. She used to be a sweet lady child, prancing around in her Sunday best with her father and mother pondering the dirt streets of their budding town. Her pig tail braids would flop around as she twirled her skirts, kicking up dust to cloud her sister’s view.

She was a happy girl who had older brothers that would give her the world and little brothers that would mess with her any chance they got.

The epitome of happiness, she was.

But behind closed doors, her father harbored a deadly secret that ended up getting her family killed.

Gone was the girl who laughed and played in the blistering Arizona sun. Now she was a deadly animal, hunting down the lions who killed her family and taking back what was rightfully her, even if it meant her demise.

For years she followed the scent of deceit, taking out the people who did her family wrong one by one. Information spewed from their lips, hoping it would spare them from her deathly grasp, only having their throats cut with a single blade. Her sympathies ran dry a long time ago and she did whatever she had to do to gather the information she needed to get to the top. To get to the people who organized it all.

But doing whatever it took to get what she needed tended to come with consequences; falling in love being one of them. She hadn’t planned on her innocent infatuation to turn into something deeper. Something so primal, that she had no control over it.

He was a missing piece to a complicated puzzle that she needed and playing an innocent damsel in distress would be a sure-fire way to gain her attention.

The plan was set and with the help of her trusty steed, all she had to do was act the part.

It was a hot day; the sun blistering as it shined down on the small town. The heavy gown she had stolen would work perfectly to her advantage. When he was in sight, all she did was feign her sudden discomfort and feint from the outrageous heat. It was quite dramatic, but worked in her favor, for he came to her rescue and pulled her inside his small abode to cool from the burning heat.

She had a goal, to pin him with her pistol and demand he talk, but his eyes had captured her soul before she could gather a sentence.

The deep purple of his irises had halted her thoughts, telling her of his innocence without so much as a single word.

She couldn’t kill him, let alone hurt him, for she saw that he was just a pawn for something much more sinister.

She revealed herself to him, right then and there, exposing her true intentions. He was frightened; who would not be but listened as she poured herself to him. And for her truth, he told her his. They listened to each other’s stories, realizing that there was a much bigger game to be played. She needed him, just as much as he needed her.

A political empire was at stake, as so together they decided to deceive the system, just as the system had deceived them.

His goal was to take back his family’s fortune; to take the power away from those that controlled the money across the country. His line taken from him by a power-hungry family, willing to make the small folk suffer for their gain.

There were every day people trying to make a living wage by cultivating their own lands, creating their own business, only to have it taken from by rising taxes and outrageous interest rates. Every day he saw a family struggle, and he’d be damned to see it go on any further.

She admired that about him. How he stood for the people and wanted to make a better life for those who worked until their backs broke. He had a kind heart and the prospect of domestic life with this man was beginning to look like a possibility. No more hunting and hanging up the knife for good.

But happiness was impossible for someone like her, and just how her family was taken, he was taken; killed for his ideologies of making their world a better place to live in. The powers that be, executing him and making her watch as the man that she loved laid bleeding on their bedroom floor.

_“Let this be a warning, that anyone who comes for the Lannister’s will end up like Aegon Targaryen.”_

Those words the man ‘The Mountain’ had spoken would echo through her head; the voice a constant reminder of who the real enemy was. She would make them suffer and make sure that they would never forget who Arya Stark really was.

_____________________

He was hard working man; building his life up from nothing.

He was born into nothing, but he would make sure to leave the world as a self-made man. He never knew his mother; just was always told she was some bar wench who gotten pregnant for nothing more than a dime.

His childhood was far from perfect as he roamed about the only orphanage within town.

Jealously panged him as he would watch the families gather in the square after the church bell rang and how the children his age would run around and play, laughter filling the air of their happiness. Oh, how he prayed at night for someone to love him like those mothers and fathers loved their children.

His hopes to be adopted dwindled after his eighth birthday when he realized that no one would want him. Who would want a whore’s son, for not even she wanted him?

As the years passed and the other boys and girls went to parents that loved them, his diminished hope had turned him sour and rough; shutting himself off from the rest of world around him. He had not been motivated, no ambition and was sure to end up in a sheriff’s cell as soon as he turned sixteen.

But one day, after his thirteenth birthday, a sprightly old man had wander upon the orphanage looking for a dependable young man to do some heavy lifting. You see, the old man had a bad back and the upkeep of his farm was becoming daunting. There would be wages, of course, and perhaps, if the young man proved himself, could have the farm as his own one day.

He’s be lying if he said he didn’t jump at the opportunity, for it meant he could leave the orphanage and become something other than an outlaw.

So, the sprightly old man took him in, showing him the ways of the land.

He was expecting a small shed of a house, just a single floor with one bedroom and fireplace, not the two decked home with land that went on for miles. Horses and cows grazing along the fields, with chickens and pigs roaming about their pens. 

It was everything he had hoped for. A place to call his own and even a man to call father and a woman to call mother, for the sprightly old man had wife just as rambunctious as him. They even had a daughter they had gathered from an orphanage in a town not to far from where he grew up.

It was perfect. Until it wasn’t

Years had gone by without a hitch. He had learned the trade of farming from his old man, even picked up blacksmithing as an added trade from one in town. His sister and his mother baked goods to sell to the town folk for a few extra coins.

Taxes were manageable, so long as the crop was good.

But like any farm, there were bound to be some troubles.

The drought that had come along did nothing for the upkeep, and with his father’s ailing health and his mother’s weakened state, there was nothing to do but sell pieces of land back to the banks. It panged his heart to see everything his father had worked for vanish, and the rising taxes did little to help the situation.

His sister did what she could to help, even so much as to work in the saloon in town. He hated the idea, especially with how handsy some of the drunkards could get, but they needed to coin.

After their parent’s passing, he had to do everything he could to keep the family farm from being taken by the banks. One more bad crop season could mean he and sister having no roof over their heads and no food in their bellies.

He worked to the bone, picking up work at the local blacksmith shop just to get by.

With his focus deep into trying to save his family farm, he hadn’t realized that his sister had been violated; defiled by a drunkard passing though from another town. He had boasted himself as ‘The Mountain’ or so his sister said as she told him about her horror.

If ‘The Mountain’ had still been in town, he would have run his pitchfork into the man for defiling his sister the way that he did, leaving behind the searing memory of her torture by way of a growing babe in her belly.

As his sister’s belly grew, so did the banks.

They demanded more and more, leaving him with nothing but a few horses and the land his house laid upon. He could not lose their home, for the new addition to their small family would be arriving.

As the crop began to rise, his sister’s babe was ready to harvest, and when her waters broke, he rushed for the nearest midwife he could find.

For hours she pushed, trying to rid herself of the large babe inside of her. The screams were piercing as she bellowed in pain and he wanted to do was comfort her. He paced the halls of their home, until finally the screams had ceased. But there was just silence. No cry of a newborn babe, no joyous laughter of his sister holding her babe. Just complete and utter silence.

That night, god had beckoned his sister and his nephew home.

He was now, once again, left with no one to love him, with his home on the brick of being taken away by the Lannister banks.

_“You have two weeks, Mr. Gendry Waters, then the banks will seize your last of your remaining assets. The Lannister’s send their regards.”_

He had kept those words from his sister, not wanting to put more stress on her tiny frame, but it was for naught, for she couldn’t even survive childbirth.

He’d be damned to have the last remaining ruminates of his once whole family taken from him. He would make sure the Lannister’s get their regards.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya and Gendry meet and surprise guest makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two is up!! And I have to expand this to 4 parts to truly pull off what I want with this story. It will most likely alternate pov and we will know how Arya ended up at Gendry's abode. We will also start to see a plan come into place. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Just a week had passed since his sister untimely death. A week buried in the ground with her babe nestled to her chest. While no longer apart of Waters’ property, Gendry had made sure to lay her beside their parents, so that they all could rest together.

The daunting task of clearing out her belongings and selling them in town for coin was one of the hardest things Gendry had to ever do. There were momentous of her life, strewn across the small room adjacent to his. Cook books and aprons she had collected through the years, and even a tiny cot where his nephew was to lay.

They were constant reminders of what that vile man had done to his sister, because she was no longer here because of him. Because of the seed he had planted in her womb, too much for her to birth.

Gendry was planning his revenge; he would find ‘The Mountain’ and make him remember who Shireen Waters was. He would kill him and somehow, someway find the money to save the only thing he had left of his family, because he’d be damned if he lets Lannister Bank and Co. take that too.

He didn’t care about the acres that were already repossessed, all he wanted was the house and the barn that stood just twenty feet away. That’s all he needed. That, and the horses.

They had been around for as long as he can remember. Since the very first day he set food on the land, he saw Tiger and Bessy trotting around the land, basking in the warm summer air. Now, with little space to care for, the two steeds stayed tied up in the barn; away from prying eyes.

The bandits around town had doubled since he was a child and he couldn’t risk either one of those horses to be taken.

They were too much like family for him to lose them to.

As he began to pack some of his sister belongings and head them out to the barn, a loud bang erupted from the place, prompting him to run to see who or what had gotten trapped. He picked up the nearby rifle his father used to keep tucked behind some bunches of hay, in case of any unwanted situations.

He rounded the corner of the barn, careful to not startle whatever it was inside, with his rifle at the ready. He peered around the corner, scanning the inside of the barn to see if there was any disturbance. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so he fully rounded the corner, stepping passed the open barn doors.

Perhaps a scared animal got trapped inside, trying to make its way and that was causing all the ruckus. It was a common occurrence, so much so, his father used to make him weed out the animal and let the poor thing out. If he was lucky, it would be stray cat looking for something to eat.

Gendry entered the barn fully, heading towards the corner where most of the trapped animals would hide, when he noticed the horses’ uneasiness.

Something set them off, and it had to bigger than a cat to so.

Pulling the rifle up he slowly looked about the barn for what he assumed to be an intruder.

His attention was so focused on the prospect of luring out whoever disturbed his horses, that he didn’t register the click from a pistol behind him.

“I’m going to need you to lower that rifle.”

Gendry stiffened and lowered the rifle to the ground, letting it drop with a thud. He raised his hands in defense as he slowly turned, facing a woman with a big glaring pistol pointed at his head.

“Good, now that we have that out of the way. I’m going to need one of your horses.” The woman demanded. She was a petite thing in thin skirts, with trousers peeking from underneath. Her boots were worn, almost as if she had walked for days. Her thick long hair was pulled back from his face, stuffed under a brimmed hat. There was a gun holster nestled on her waist, big enough to carry at least three pistols. Gendry noticed her sun-kissed skin and how her lips were cracked from lack of water.

Wherever this woman came from, it was obvious she was traveling for quite some time; no doubt in the desert parts of the west.

Gendry knew that there was a town about a two days ride from where the farm was stationed. On horseback, the travel was uncomfortable. He could imagine how it was on foot.

He was cautious and only shifted his feet in place, fear that this wild woman would leave a hole in his head.

“I can’t give you one, miss.” He smoothly stated, calming his nerves as to not make his voice quiver with fear.

A curt chuckle passed her lips, “Well I wasn’t really asking.”

She pointed the pistol a little more forcefully, causing Gendry to recede in his steps, “Look, I can’t give you one those horses, but I can give you some water, maybe some food? You look like you’ve to hell and back, maybe I can help.”

He was rambling, but he needed to get himself out of this dangerous game of cat and mouse, so the only logically thing he could think of was letting a deranged woman into his home for some food and water. She looked like she needed and hoped that she would take the bait.

He watched as she hesitated and slightly lowered her pistol, as if contemplating the offer, but she swiftly shook her head and held the pistol back in Gendry’s direction.

“Look, you want coin…I have some, just give me a damn horse!” Gendry could tell she was becoming inpatient and he didn’t put it past this stranger to rip his head off with her pistol if need be. Was he _really_ willing to risk his life an old horse?

That answer was as clear as the sky outside that barn: yes, he was.

“Why! Why do you want a horse? Tell me and I’ll give you one.” He bartered. If he was going to lose another member of his family, they there better be a hell of a reason why.

Perhaps she was trying to escape a drunkard husband; if that was the case, he would gladly hand over a horse. Or she could be some outlaw, on the run from the law, potentially giving the woman her freedom. Whatever the case, it wouldn’t come free. He had to know.

“I don’t have time to tell you why!” Gendry noticed that she dared a glance over her shoulder, almost as if she was expecting someone to be right behind her.

“You have time to hold me at gun point, so you have time to tell me why you need my horse.” He pressed on, trying to bide his time before, what was sure to be imminent death. 

“Please…I really don’t want to have to shoot you. You didn’t do anything to warrant it…Just give me a horse.” She begged, once again taking the time to glance over her shoulder.

Gendry could tell she was on edge just by the way her impatience grew. She was scared, of what he did not know, but she was in a rush to get out of there and needed one his horses to do it.

“Okay, if you just put down the put the pist-” the sudden sound of barks erupted from outside the barn, closing their distance. Gendry knew, just by the sound that the hounds would make themselves known once a scent was caught. And with hounds comes sheriffs.

“Shit! I told you I didn’t have time.” The woman cursed as she docked her pistol on her holster. “I need somewhere to hide.”

“You think, after you held a pistol to my face, that I would help you hide?” He asked, exasperated.

She looked desperate as she started wandering around the barn, trying to find a good place to hide herself away, “Look, you wanted a reason. I’ll tell you! But first, hide me.”

Gendry was hesitant, he wasn’t sure if he should trust this woman or not, but a name was always a good place to start.

“Fine. But give me your name first.”

With a heavy sigh, the woman said, “Arya Stark.”

Gendry nodded, “Get in the horse stable and cover yourself with the hay. The scent of the horses will mask your scent, throwing the hounds off.

He saw her apprehension, but nodded, “Thank you, truly.”

Gendry returned her thanks and quickly grabbed his rifle from where he had thrown it aside. He shuffled about the barn, closing the stable door as she entered inside, heeding his advice and hiding herself under the hay.

He swiftly exited the barn, closing the doors behind him.

As he turned around from the closed doors he was greeted, not by sheriffs with blood hounds, but by an all too familiar face with his own special breed of hounds.

“Mr. Waters, what a coincidence that my hounds led me here.” The vile man said.

“Mr. Baelish, what are you doing here? I thought I had at least one more week before you took the last of my property.”

The vile smiled his toothy grin, “We aren’t here for you, Mr. Waters. My hounds caught a scent of a woman we’ve been hunting. She stole something from us, you see. You wouldn’t have happened to come across her?”

Gendry shrugged, “Sorry, Mr. Baelish, but I’ve had no such encounter. But I do ask myself, what is a man from Lannister Bank and Co. doing hunting down a woman who stole some coins? Shouldn’t that be the job of the sheriffs?”

Mr. Baelish chuckled, “No need to concern yourself.”

He took several steps, circling around in place to get a look at the barn behind Gendry, “Do you mind if my hounds sniff around. She may be lurking, and you might not even know it.”

“Please, go ahead.” He let the man pass, smiling as he did so.

Gendry’s demeanor was calm and cool, but his heart was pounding, ready to bound outside of his chest.

One thing was made abundantly clear, as Baelish and his hounds scoured his property, that he and Arya Stark had the same enemy and he was determined to help her take them down at any cost.


End file.
